64 Positions Cut In Brick School Budget For 2023-24

BRICK, NJ — The Brick Township schools will be cutting 64 staff positions for the 2023-24 school year under the budget approved by the Board of Education Thursday night.

The $160,370,747 budget includes a tax levy of $120,466,734, and also reflects a reduction in state funding as part of the ongoing cuts under S2.

That cut initially was set at $2,542,260 under Gov. Phil Murphy's proposed budget, but that figure was reduced by $1,677,892, leaving the district with a cut of $864,368. Under S2, districts that are below adequacy are required to increase their property tax levy to the 2 percent cap. In the Brick budget, the final tax increase is 1.77 percent, due to a reduction in the district's debt service.

The staff reductions — 34 instructional and 30 support staff — bring the total number of staffing cuts to more than 250 over the six years of S2 so far, with one more year under the law that took effect in 2018 to go.

Superintendent Thomas Farrell said the reductions will include non-renewal of some non-tenured staff, while they are hoping that retirements and attrition limit the need for layoffs.

The reductions will include nearly 13 at the high schools, nine at the middle schools, five elementary positions and seven basic skills positions.

The impact, district administrators said, is significant. Class sizes will be going up, with an average of 23 students in kindergarten, 24 in first grade (including a high of 32 at Osbornville Elementary School) and an average of 26 or 27 in grades 2 through 5.

In the middle schools, the class sizes will average 28 students in sixth and seventh grades, 26 in eighth grade at Lake Riviera Middle School and 25 in eighth grade at Veterans Memorial Middle School. At the high schools, the core classes in English and math will have an average of 25 students.

Increased class sizes lead to increased behavioral issues and make it much more difficult for teachers to provide individual help to students a number of studies have shown, according to a Chalkbeat report.

One of the other factors stressing the budget is the tuition cost for out-of-district placements for students with special needs. The tuition for those students has risen as much as 30 percent in some cases, district officials said.

The district has seen a significant increase in the number of special education students, students who are economically disadvantaged and students who are English language learners, business administrator James Edwards said. Those students all require additional support, and those services are additional costs above basic classroom instruction.

The district's preschool program is receiving $5,819,304 in state funding, which covers about 83 percent of the program's cost, Farrell said. Brick's share of the cost is about $1.5 million.

While S2 requires the district to increase the tax levy to the 2 percent cap, the district remains under adequacy and that gap continues to grow. Edwards said the state Department of Education says Brick Township is more than $16.5 million under adequacy for the 2023-24 school year; it is more than $45 million under adequacy overall.

According to state Department of Education figures, Brick Township taxpayers can afford to pay $165.6 million to support the schools, more than $45 million above the 2023-24 tax levy.

Assemblyman John Catalano from the 10th District was in attendance and urged residents to support legislation that would force the state to use $3 billion in property taxes that is sitting, not designated, to fully fund districts and provide some relief for taxpayers. It would help districts that are being cut, and districts that at adequacy would still receive their state funding.

Catalano said the bill, A5253, has been worked on for a year and was introduced in March to address the issues with S2, which has resulted in deep cuts for more than 150 school districts.